Yes they were expensive and when they were first released they also did not offer lifetime service. I think I paid $300 for 3 years of TiVo service for each of my three OLED S3 boxes.

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I had cleaned out the local BestBuy of lifetime cards when they were discontinued and saved a few for myself (bought 11, sold all but 3 for significant profit) so both of our S3s had real lifetime. (used the last one for my first Premiere)

I had cleaned out the local BestBuy of lifetime cards when they were discontinued and saved a few for myself (bought 11, sold all but 3 for significant profit) so both of our S3s had real lifetime. (used the last one for my first Premiere)

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I had used TiVos with DirecTV prior to getting the OLED boxes. Had I known about those lifetime cards I would have picked a bunch up just to make a profit. I really made out with the DirecTV SD TiVo and HD boxes. I bought several of each and sold them at enough profit to cover my initial three SD boxes in early 2002 and most of the cost of upgraded hard drives. In 2004 I did the same thing to cover the cost of two DirecTV HD boxes and the cost of upgrading to dual hard drives. But when I switched to the cable TiVos in late 2006 it was a whole new ballgame for me. By the time I found out about lifetime service it was way too late since I think they had stopped that the year prior.

I wish they would have offered me that deal. When I got mine I prepaid three years. No one offered to convert me to lifetime when they started offering it again. But they did give me a deal on lifetime when those three years were up.

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I bought 2 of the S3 OLEDs in December 2006 and January 2007 when they had dropped to $600 and they were offering the lifetime "upgrade" for $199 each plus giving a year of free service to the old TiVo that you were upgrading from. This was discussed here on the forum at the time.

I upgraded both of our S1's to S3's at the time as I was concerned that they were never going to offer lifetime again. I certainly paid a lot more for the original S3 at the time (although less than the original $800) but I've been happy with the purchase and both are still working great almost 7 years later.

Of course you should expect to receive all channels for the market that align with the cable card specifications.

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Great, so no switched digital video channels, then? I mean, that's a LOT of channels to go missing and it impacts everyone except FIOS users so Tivo had to do something there. But how many users and channels are affected by H.264?

Merging code bases can be a pain in the ass but I bet that played a minor role at best in the decision. Planning for the resource allocation, testing, and roll out of the changes were probably much more significant. And I don't really care what hoops they have to jump through to make it happen. That is a risk they take by producing a product for which they offered a lifetime option. The risk I take is that they will continue to support it.

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I was including all of that testing and rollout in my assessment as well. We agree that it would be a huge PITA for Tivo with very little return. And you're still with them, correct? So it can't be all that bad. Normally I'd say vote with your wallet, but Tivo already has all the money they're ever going to get from you. Unless you sell the S3 and buy the Roamio, which would fix your situation yet reward Tivo with even more of your money. Tough call. Maybe if you call and complain you can get a discount on the Roamio or its service. That's way easier for Tivo to do than implement a new feature on a 7 year old box.

I also agree that calling it "lifetime service" implies code updates for a long time. Since most people would consider code updates as part of the service. But everyone in this forum knows better. Tivo considers their service to be just the guide data, and if they happen to fix bugs or add features along the way that's a bonus.

Tivo considers their service to be just the guide data, and if they happen to fix bugs or add features along the way that's a bonus.

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Not quite. The fee you pay for their service allows the various features in the Tivo software to function. Consider it an ongoing activation fee. You could also compare it to a satellite box. The box may function for free channels but nothing else. You can't get any of the regular channels until you sign up for the satellite service and get the access card activated. Same goes for Tivo. The basic functions will work, but you can't record anything or use any of the Tivo special features.

I used to be able to download guide data for my DirecTivos without having satellite service. I'm not sure if that's still allowable with a standalone Tivo.

I was including all of that testing and rollout in my assessment as well. We agree that it would be a huge PITA for Tivo with very little return. And you're still with them, correct? So it can't be all that bad. Normally I'd say vote with your wallet, but Tivo already has all the money they're ever going to get from you. Unless you sell the S3 and buy the Roamio, which would fix your situation yet reward Tivo with even more of your money. Tough call. Maybe if you call and complain you can get a discount on the Roamio or its service. That's way easier for Tivo to do than implement a new feature on a 7 year old box.

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We agree it could have been a pain in the ass for some programmer sitting in a cube someplace. That's his or her job and not really my concern. I agree there is little return in immediate revenue but it can have an impact on the volume of units you sell of your next product and affect future income. It can also impact the level of frustration users are willing to tolerate.

It's one of the reasons I skipped the Premier. I did buy a Roamio. That was lost income for Tivo.

I never said I was taking my toys and going home. I said it would have an impact on when I bought another unit and what I was willing to spend for it. Tivo hasn't lost me yet but if they continue to ditch products that, in my opinion, still require updates, they may eventually.

I also agree that calling it "lifetime service" implies code updates for a long time. Since most people would consider code updates as part of the service. But everyone in this forum knows better. Tivo considers their service to be just the guide data, and if they happen to fix bugs or add features along the way that's a bonus.

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My expectations are different than yours. It's your choice to not expect updates, deal with unresolved problems, and pay more money to see if the issue is fixed in the next hardware rev. It's your money.

I don't expect just guide data. My guess is a majority of the population on the forums expect updates and fixes. They may be disappointed.. but the again, see above.

We agree it could have been a pain in the ass for some programmer sitting in a cube someplace. That's his or her job and not really my concern. I agree there is little return in immediate revenue but it can have an impact on the volume of units you sell of your next product and affect future income. It can also impact the level of frustration users are willing to tolerate.

It's one of the reasons I skipped the Premier. I did buy a Roamio. That was lost income for Tivo.

I never said I was taking my toys and going home. I said it would have an impact on when I bought another unit and what I was willing to spend for it. Tivo hasn't lost me yet but if they continue to ditch products that, in my opinion, still require updates, they may eventually.

My expectations are different than yours. It's your choice to not expect updates, deal with unresolved problems, and pay more money to see if the issue is fixed in the next hardware rev. It's your money.

I don't expect just guide data. My guess is a majority of the population on the forums expect updates and fixes. They may be disappointed.. but the again, see above.

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Your opinion or my opinion are really irrelevant when it comes to what Tivo should do. Management has a legal responsibility to what ever they believe will result in the maximum return to stock holders. You or I can again have opinions on how to do that when it comes to issues like spending money to update the Series 3 units software or not, however TiVo has significant more data than we do and can and should be adjusting their decisions based on it. Given how well the Roamio DVRs appear to be selling I would think the absolute most TiVo is going to do for Series 3 owners is offer them a deal on some left over or refurbed Series 4 hardware.

In the end we get to vote with our wallets but then so does TiVo and yes there are times when the customer is wrong and/or they are not worth having/retaining.

Incorrect. A while back there was an update for the Premiere which disabled the 30 minute buffers, but I believe that was a mistake because a subsequent update later reinstated them.
As of now, my unsubscribed Premiere has the 30 minute buffers.

Of course, things might be different for the Roamio line. I don't have one to compare.

Hmm... could've sworn that I saw they disabled trickplay at some point on unsubbed Premieres.

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They did. I believe it was v14.9.2 that disabled the live buffers.
I don't remember when they were restored, but I want to say it was within a short time span.
I thought it was a mistake at the time. Why would TiVo disable a marketing tool? It seems you would want that little feature there to give unsubscribed users a taste of what the Tivo interface is all about.